FightWriter and freelance editor Savannah Grace asks FightWrite™ about street fighting – I’ve got a character who grew up in a gang, and I’m trying to figure out how to properly write his fighting style, since he would use non-traditionally-taught fighting styles that he picked up on the street. Do you have any tips/posts/videos on that?
Thank you for this question Savannah! It’s a good one.
Before we get into technique and style, there’s a much bigger concept we need to address. Street fighting is not like sanctioned fighting. In my book, I describe the difference between the two like this:
Street Fighting vs Sanctioned Fights
If your characters are involved in a fight on the street, forget everything you have learned about fighting from sanctioned fighting. A street fight is nothing like a sporting match. There are no rules and nothing is off limits. Anything can happen. Everything can be a weapon. It’s brutal. It’s primal. The pace is frenzied. The intensity is at a maximum. The fighters don’t pace themselves. The strategy is to do whatever it takes. And while there may be spoils for the victor, in a street fight, to survive is to be victorious.
– Fight Write: How to Write Believable Fight Scenes
So, right now, we have to get the idea of two gang members squaring off and trading blows like boxers in a ring out of our heads. Even if those gang members are all trained, professional fighters, the fight will not look anything like a professional fight.
Street Fighting
This is a “street fight.” Yes, it’s brutal. It may not be easy to watch. But, if you are going to write about some one who has been in the brutal world of gang violence, you need to know what you’re dealing with. And, this ain’t even it. This, in comparison to many videos that I have seen, is fairly palatable. There’s no blood we can see and everyone walks away. No one is hit over the head with a bottle and then stabbed in the face with the broken remains of the glass. No one is stomped to death. No one has their throat crushed, their eye gauged, their ear ripped off. No one has bitten off a nose (yes, that’s a thing) No guns are knives are wielded. This fight here? It’s tame.
Bar Fights
Why do I say all that horrible stuff? Because until you know what a street fight is, you simply don’t know what it is. That’s all there is to it. And if you want street fighting in your work, especially one that stems from gangs, wow, you have to know what you are dealing with. It’s not pretty. This video is age restricted because it is violent so you have to go directly to YouTube. There’s a lot of strikes but little blood and no one is brutally attacked. It’s all basic bar fight stuff.
What do we see? A lot of “haymaker” punches ie big, wide punches that are very telegraphed. We also see there is little order or rules. Things are thrown and people are hit with no warning. In the third video we see two people knocked out. The first guy stays out a long time. This could be from a concussion sustained from hitting the ground or he might be drunk. When he is knocked out, he goes limp. The second guy stiffens up. I’ve seen both happen and the latter is upsetting, at least to me. It looks like the person is having a seizure. In fight four we see that, unlike the movies would have us believe, people don’t wait in line to fight one by one. They are descend and it is very unorganized. And, a stool some one uses to strike is taken from that. You have to keep that in mind when you grab any weapon: it can be taken from you. Some of those folks are clearly drunk.
There was little, if any, proper fight technique in the video. But, it didn’t matter. The strikes that landed were effective and I think that is a key concept in understanding fights on the street. It’s not so much about what is technically sound as much as what works. When your adrenaline is pumping, you don’t care if you got proper torque in the hips and rotation in the shoulder or if you are making a fist that will protect your hand as much as possible. The only thing you care about in a situation like this, is the next moment. There’s no strategy really except get them before you get gotten!
So, Savannah, the great news for you is that you don’t have to worry about your character having good technique. Now, I’m not saying he won’t know how to fight. I’m saying that the fight your character finds himself in will likely be so cray-cray that you won’t have to worry about writing a technically sound punch.
HOWEVER, in the next post, I will discuss bare knuckle brawling!
But wait! Don’t go yet! Don’t hang up! Subscribe to the blog! When you do you will get a guide to stages of death and decomposition, bleeding out and a little extra help on describing pain.
Until the next round at FightWrite™, get blood on your pages!
